Specter leaving Rethugs

This is really bad for my ilk. Rationed healthcare here we come.

Update: can McCain be far behind?

Update II: Ace reminds me that Phil Gramm at least had the decency to resign his Democrat congressional seat before running as a Rethug. My law school roommate (a big Dem.) was furious at the time. Whatever one thinks of Gramm, that seems the more honorable way to do it since those who elected you did so at least in part due to your party affiliation. From Wiki:

In 1976, Gramm unsuccessfully challenged Texas Democratic Senator Lloyd M. Bentsen, in the party's senatorial primary. Then in 1978 Gramm successfully ran as a Democrat for Representative from Texas's 6th congressional district. He was reelected to his House seat as a Democrat in 1980, and again in 1982.

Following his 1982 reelection, Gramm resigned his House seat on January 5, 1983, forcing a mid-term special election. Gramm ran in that election on February 12, 1983 to fill the vacancy that he had created, but as a Republican. Winning, he became the first Republican to represent the district since its creation. After he left the House the seat was retained for the Republican party by Joe Barton.

Fillet of Financial Crisis

This article by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone does a nice job explaining the current financial crisis and its origins. It should be required reading for all citizens. He touches on my favorite theme (the GAMBLING):

He [Liddy, AIG CEO] conveniently forgot to mention that AIG had spent more than a decade systematically scheming to evade U.S. and international regulators, or that one of the causes of its "pneumonia" was making colossal, world-sinking $500 billion bets with money it didn't have, in a toxic and completely unregulated derivatives market.

Nor did anyone mention that when AIG finally got up from its seat at the Wall Street casino, broke and busted in the afterdawn light, it owed money all over town — and that a huge chunk of your taxpayer dollars in this particular bailout scam will be going to pay off the other high rollers at its table. Or that this was a casino unique among all casinos, one where middle-class taxpayers cover the bets of billionaires.

He covers the legislative pieces of the puzzles and ties it together with campaign contributions:

In 1997 and 1998, the years leading up to the passage of Phil Gramm's fateful act that gutted Glass-Steagall, the banking, brokerage and insurance industries spent $350 million on political contributions and lobbying. Gramm alone — then the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee — collected $2.6 million in only five years. The law passed 90-8 in the Senate, with the support of 38 Democrats, including some names that might surprise you: Joe Biden, John Kerry, Tom Daschle, Dick Durbin, even John Edwards.

The act helped create the too-big-to-fail financial behemoths like Citigroup, AIG and Bank of America — and in turn helped those companies slowly crush their smaller competitors, leaving the major Wall Street firms with even more money and power to lobby for further deregulatory measures.

There's lots more, so please do read. (I might recommend double-dosing on any anti-depression meds first, though.)